Sussex Photographer Bernie Greene scratching out a tune while trying not to fall off the roof

room pano

This is an experimental picture of one of the more exotic rooms at ARTS House in Sharpthorne. It was made for day 32 of the 365 but never got posted.

I have decided to stop the 365 after 76 days. I loved doing it and it did me a lot of good creatively but it was also distracting me far too much from my business as a photographer.

One thing I found detrimental about it was that I am not a good instant editor. Editing is a very different hat to image making. Both are important. I found my editing job was suffering because of the daily deadline. To edit correctly I need at least 24 hours to go by after a shoot before I put on the editor’s hat. There were many times in the 365 when I made a bunch of shots and chose one that looked good at the time only to find a day or so later there was a much better one I had overlooked. This is obviously not good for clients or promotion of my work.

But I still want to post more or less daily. Well there are a lot of pictures that haven’t had an audience purely because they were made in the past that can now have that audience. The picture above for example.

This was made about 6 weeks ago as an experiment. I wanted to see if distortion was a necessarily “bad thing”. The cheap kit lens that came with my camera creates distortion at wide angles that other, more expensive, lenses I have don’t. Lines that are meant to be straight come out bent to a slight degree. I don’t use it when straight lines are important but that isn’t that often and I still like and frequently use the kit lens. But the above pic was distorted in a different and far more exagerated way.

This image is made up of nine seperate images using a relatively long focal length instead of one wide angle shot. The nine images were then “stiched” together with specialist and very time consuming software.  The software is called Hugin and you can get it for free on the internet if you want to have a play with it.

maybe I can help.

Framed Portrait

I currently have a particular interest in bringing out and showing off to the world the evil characters within us. I am not afraid of the dark. In fact I love to explore it.

If you’d like an evil looking portrait to bring a bit of Feng Shui balance with all the pretty things in your home you can get an 8×12 inch print to frame yourself from as little as £50. As long as you desire to have a wall hanging picture the session is free and you don’t have to buy anything at all if you don’t like the results. Not a bad offer eh?

If you make a booking before the end of May 2010 you will get 25% off whatever you buy.

The session can take place any time over the next three months.

The session can take place in your own home, on location, or secretly at my studio. You can call or text me in confidence on 07549 224079 or email me at bernie at imageconjurer.com

sun on wall

The blinds weren’t completely drawn and a little bit of sunshine made it through into my world today. Never mind. I’ll be making sure the blinds are fully closed tomorrow in case it happens again.

I was going to write “by popular demand” but I didn’t think one email would justify such language. But I did get one request so that is a good enough excuse so I am hereby posting the “evil” Gary Byrne which I have now come to prefer anyway.

the evil gary byrne

Gary Byrne

Sometimes being a geezer and a photographer is tough. As a photographer I think this guy is really good looking but as a geezer it just isn’t something I would openly admit. Such is life. Mr Byrne came to ARTS House today to meet someone. While he was waiting I grabbed about three minutes with him in the studio. We made eight shots. Any one of those eight could have been the chosen one. In the end I narrowed it down to two; the one above where he looks kind of like a good guy and another where he most certainly looked like a bad guy. It was a toss up. I chose this one mainly because I usually would have chosen the other.

So what of the 365 you ask. Well it’s back. Sort of. I like the project far too much to just drop it but I’m not going to continue it with subjects that aren’t really my bag. So if I don’t get to shoot someone or something that I want to shoot then I won’t post one for that day. It is still a 365 project but it might take 465 days to complete.

The project has a lot of value to me personally but it was becoming too expensive to maintain. It has already achieved a purpose I didn’t have for it which is to show me where my main interests are. These happily coincide with what I want to trade. But there have been many days where I was shooting stuff for the project that was not the kind of thing I want to trade. So I had some choices to make. I didn’t want to be posting stuff on my main website that I didn’t want to be shooting professionally. And I didn’t really want to start posting the 365 stuff somewhere else after having started it here. So the above is a workable compromise for me.

Louise

Had a fun session with Louise Taylor on her roof last night. Here are some of the results.

Louise Taylor 2

When she started getting cold we went inside.

Louise Taylor 3

Not because she was cold but because it is a lot of work to retouch goosebumps.

Louise Taylor 4

She did her own makeup and wardrobe too.

What’s happened to the 365? Not sure yet. It is currently suspended while I catch up on some more urgent work. But I also have to figure out if it belongs on this site.

I haven’t made a post for four days? And I’m in the midst of a 365?

Not really a whole lot to say about it. Computer crashed late Monday or early Tuesday. Lost a bunch of data and a good part of a project I was working on. Been working to get back the lost stuff.

Normal transmission will be resumed shortly.

Pushing It

Alex Pownall doing a push up from a session today shot at the gym at the East Grinstead Rugby Club. Obvious really. Don’t know why I bothered with an explanation.

Blue 2

Continuing my “blue period” we have this offering made after watching half of Sin City. Shot with three strobes two of which were gelled with blue and red. The third was really only used for firing one of the others that was slaved.  I’m seriously impressed with how cool I can make the old rubber face look.

The Lemonade Cookie

A cookie (or cookaloris to give it it’s full name) is something placed between a light source and the surface that light is intended to fall on. It’s purpose is to make the light more interesting by introducing shapes for the light to pass through. The above pic is a demonstration using a glass of lemonade. Usually the lemonade would not be included in the picture.

The above is intended to eliminate any snarky remarks about little things and little minds.

Note also that this lemonade is Shweppes Lemonade. It probably wouldn’t be as good with a cheaper brand.

Petroula

Did a headshot session today for Petroula Kaneti-Dimmer. The above was my favourite. Just got through editing.

Headshot sessions are interesting but I have discovered they are not the same as portrait sessions and the end results might be very different. With headshots my own likes and dislikes don’t come into it. They are made for a specific audience the actor wants to communicate with. My job is to help the actor communicate and to keep myself out of the way as much as possible. So I don’t do anything that would in any way render the sitter unrecognisable! The only processing is contrast and colour tweaks and a black and white conversion which is the accpeted form in this country.

With portrait sessions it is me who is communicating something about the subject to the viewer rather than just being a relay point. Portrait sessions are more fun for me and usually the sitter too. With headshots there is a certain amount of wondering what will work for the casting directors who aren’t there to consult.

With portraits I please myself first and hopefully but not necessarily the sitter too. But we are both there and can discuss the point and look at the current results and see if we are heading in the right direction. I want my sitters to like my work but it isn’t absolutely vital because if they chose me to shoot them they have a pretty good idea of what they’ll be getting. And if they didn’t choose me then I chose them and so may be only shooting for me anyway.

It is true I will not make any money if the sitter hates the work but I’m finding that if I consult the sitter more than myself we both end up with results that are less interesting.

The reason I like this one is that it is closer to a portrait than the others I shot today. And by that I mean that it shows Petroula in a way I would like to show Petroula.

I wonder if this post made any sense to anyone other than me….

Linnie

Last time Linnie stayed at ARTS House near East Grinstead she was subjected to this. So this time when she asked for something a little more becoming of her I had to oblige. This is a somewhat truer likeness.

Guru Rob

One of a set of three pictures for a website made today. The eye is a bit better today. Thanks for asking. What d’ya mean you didn’t ask?

Watching

Yes this is late. It was shot at about 11:00pm last night and processed immeditaely. At the time of the shoot my right eye was streaming tears. With every flash it was like a needle poking around in my eye. Somewhat nasty. Then I had to remove said tears in Photoshop. This was very hard as I could only see out of one eye. By the time I finished I couldn’t look at bright areas of the screen so I decided to not try and get it uploaded till today. The eye is still painful and streaming but not as bad as last night.

Not asking for sympathy here just letting you know the dedication I’m giving this project!

I’ve been asked how I manage to compose these shots. Well it isn’t as hard as it might seem. I pretty much know what I’m after before I set up so I set up to get what I’m after. I think that is the secret of all photography.

So here I have the camera on a tripod and the lousy model in a chair. Before the camera is mounted I focus on the tripod from the chair and roughly set the frame size (I’m using an 18-70mm lens here). Then I set the lights. Then I make some test shots and adjust position and lights accordingly.

For this shot I wanted the background to be dark. There was a room light on so the flash I was using had to be set to a high enough level to completely overpower the room light. The flash output was restricted by a snoot which meant the light would be in a tight beam. So I had to sit where I could see the flash knowing that if I can see the flash then the flash can see me too.  I also wanted the hat down over the streaming red right eye. This is also totally uncropped. What you see in the picture is exactly what the camera saw. So now you know how it doesn’t seem quite so remarkable eh?

Bram

Not Stoker, although he does have some similar characteristics such as getting a bit flappy late at night. No this is Bram whose surname I don’t know. But he is a Dutchman currently staying at ARTS House near Sharpthorne and thus has fallen victim to my way with a camera.

First CS/5 Pic

Working on that Bogey grimace.

Back to shooting the same lousy model again. Sorry about that. But hey. This was processed using Photoshop CS/5. Not that there’s any difference from what would have been produced in CS/3 as I didn’t use any of the new features. There is some processing but what you see was mostly done in camera.

Well I needed to get the processing finished on Barbara’s session and I had a bunch of other non photographic stuff to get out of the way. All of which left me without having made a 365 pic for today. I could still do one but it is now 2:00am and I don’t have anyone else around. I will continue tomorrow.

So these are all from the session last Wednesday.

Chesterfield

I have this affect on women.

Hat and Mac

I like the movie scene quality of this one.

Smoking

She can be ice cold and totally hot at the same time.

Golden Mac

Love the colours of this one

A New Hat

I can just imagine her walking into Raymond Chandler’s imagination.

Head Shot

Loveable or what?

Head Shot

And then came Joey…

The Boyfriend

… and then came …

Barbara and Joey

and that was that.